


Long Way From Home

by lar_laughs



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-12
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-24 13:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lar_laughs/pseuds/lar_laughs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amelia Banks is spending so much time running from her past that she's forgotten to pay attention to where it is that she's running to.  Or, better still, who she's running to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How She Fights

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt _I1. Lately, it hasn't been a priority_ at 5_prompts

Lately, it hasn't been a priority. Amelia wakes up without a single thought of what she might have dreamed. She gets dressed and does her hair, all without seeing her own haunted eyes staring back out from the mirror. If someone invites her to eat lunch with them at their table, she's more likely to accept than to find a place where her memories are her only company. If people have noticed that she's actually started smiling and not just lifting her lips into a fake sort of happiness, they don't say anything to her. Not with words. Now she's being asked to participate in ways she never had before.

"How's Ronon?" they all ask and she's not sure how to answer that question. He's not fine in the truest sense of the word, seeing as how the man is in the infirmary more than anyone else she knows. Not even for pansy reasons like some of the guys around here although she wonders if it isn't because he has a thing for Doctor Keller. It doesn't matter if he did because she isn't asking more of him than a few sparring sessions every week.

He starts to ask for more, though. "Want to go get a cup of coffee?"

The question didn't concern her the first time he asked. The second time, she hesitates for a few seconds longer, trying to reason out why he suddenly wants to have coffee. With her. She tells him no but a bit gentler this time. When he asks a third time, she's ready for him.

"So what's the deal with coffee? You don't seem the type who goes for stuff like that. Have you run out of the beer and pretzel crowd to hang with?"

"Damn you, Sheppard," he mutters before shrugging. "I was told that it's polite to ask a girl out for coffee if you intend to... Look, do you want to have coffee or not?"

She folds her arms, suddenly aware that she's sweating from the workout and probably smells like a teenage boy's sock. "I don't normally have _coffee_. It's not the reason I'm here." When she tries to walk out, he reaches for her but he's taught her too well over these past couple of weeks. His move is countered by one of her own and on and on until they're back to where they were just a few minutes ago. The only difference is that she's suddenly fighting for real. Her punches land harder than they ever have during practice.

"You've been holding back on me, Amelia."

It's a struggle not to show the way her stomach flips over when he says her name. The growl in his voice makes her muscles clench, more sensuous than irritated. In a different life, she would have fallen on top of him with a rain of kisses. Now she merely tightens her fists, pulling her elbows back against her sides. Each time he pushes her back against a wall, Ronon steps back to give her a chance to come forward once again. Three times. Four and still she keeps coming at him. The ringing in her head tells her it's time to stop, to head toward the shower, but she can't stop. It's become personal. She wishes he had just let them be sparring buddies. That would have been easier.

When she falls to her knees, wheezing from a pulled punch to her core, she slaps away his hand where she might normally have taken it gratefully. "Don't be a damned hero, girl."

"I will... when you... stop being... one." But she's not sure if she's talking to Ronon or her brother. It's always a toss up when she's fighting. Either way, she's doomed to go through life with something to prove.


	2. Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt _J6. You have to know where the holes are before you can fill them in_ at 5_prompts - Amelia realizes that she wants to talk to Ronon. Far more than he probably wants to listen to her.

Her heart stops beating when she hears the news that Ronon is dead on board the Wraith ship he'd walked aboard as if it was a day at the park. For a moment, she's unable to breath and her vision blurs. Everyone is looking at her as she comes out of the stupor. The name meaning something to them where she's concerned and she's beginning to hate the innuendo and smirks. They think her desire for him is what drives her toward each of the meetings with the Satedan.

What they don't know, what they'll never know, is that she doesn't think of Ronon like that. Okay, that's not true. She does think of him like that but she shouldn't. She's not in the military to catch a man and she most certainly didn't come to the Pegasus galaxy looking for an alien. How she managed to do both of those things is beyond her.

"I'm so sorry," Chuck is saying as the next report comes through. Thanks to some friendly intervention, Ronon isn't quite so dead anymore. There isn't any further news so Amelia has no idea what to expect when the team comes back. They're all taken right to the infirmary where the lovely and talented Doctor Keller will patch up any of their wounds but Amelia gets enough of a glimpse to be reassured that Ronon is mobile. She knows him well enough to know that if he can walk, he can fight.

Now Atlantis is on Earth. Everyone is excited as they contemplate what this will mean. Coffee, ice cream, movies the moment they come to theaters. Visits to home that don't take a week's worth of travel each way. Every one is happy. Everyone but Amelia. The very last thing she wants right now is her parents thinking she should be visiting more often since she's on the same continent.

The one thing that makes any sense is Ronon but even he's different. He was dead and now he's alive and that's bound to change anyone. She really wishes she'd taken him up on his offer of coffee instead of blowing him off, making him think she didn't care when really she cared more than she should have. Fear has a way of making her uptight that she should understand by now. There's certainly more than enough fear to go around in the Pegasus galaxy. More than enough here on Earth, too. She's known a lot of fear since losing her brother but none of it compares to the thought that Ronon could have died on that Wraith cruiser.

When she walks into the Infirmary with a smile pasted on her lips and sees John sitting on Ronon's bed, she almost turns around and walks back out of the room. He's got his friends. What use does he have for her? But then he smiles at her and she's lost.

"I had a brother who flew in the Air Force," she tells him as they walk slowly through the corridor, their destination the same as the rest of his team because she wants him to see Earth with them. It's only fair because they've been through so much together and Ronon's time on Earth isn't going to be all giggles and butterflies. He's more of an alien now than he's ever been.

When he doesn't acknowledge her statement, she tries to explain herself. "He was older than me but not so much older that I got into the Air Force because of some hero worship. He wanted to fly and I wanted more college than our parents could afford. It worked for both of us. Or should have. He was... killed while on a mission with Colonel Mitchell."

"I remember him talking to you when he was here."

She nods because she remembers that day but she's surprised he saw the interaction. It was so brief that she'd been certain that no one else had seen it, especially not the burly Satedan who had looked around her and through her but never at her. Not in those early days when she'd kept to herself whenever she had the chance because being on Atlantis was too much like Adam's dream and nothing like hers.

It takes her a moment to respond so that he has a moment to interject. "What was his name?"

"Adam. Adam Banks." She doesn't know why she gives his name like that. Ronon knows her name and is sure to be able to piece together what her brother's full name is. It helps to say it out loud. As if he could walk through the blue iris and be here himself because he's known.

They're standing on the balcony now, staring at the Golden Gate bridge, and Amelia is kicking herself for thinking that Ronon cares about her brother. She's even been able to convince herself that he's forgotten all about her when he turns and takes her hand. "I think I better head back to the Infirmary now. Legs are getting wobbly."

She looks over at John, expecting him to take over but he just inclines his head toward the door as if reminding her that she better hurry up and get him horizontal before she has to carry him. Her cheeks flood with color as she thinks about what it would feel like to have his body molded to hers. Before she has a chance to push the image away, Ronon swings his arm over her shoulder and she finds out the reality of that wish.


End file.
